


The Knight of London Is A Huge Jackass (And Harry's Boyfriend)

by mybrotherharry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superhero AU, Angst, Betrayal, Doctor Harry, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Identity Porn, M/M, Medical Trauma, RPF, Romance, Secret Identity, Superhero Louis, Violence appropriate to a superhero story, break-up, lying, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:18:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybrotherharry/pseuds/mybrotherharry
Summary: Louis neglects to tell his boyfriend that he's also a superhero on the side. Oops?





	1. The Knight of London Is A Huge Jackass (And Harry's Boyfriend)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [All the Other Ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/238489) by rainjoy. 



> **Note: This fic was originally written in second person narration, but I received lot of comments requesting to write this in third person. So chapter 1 now has the third person narration. If any of you want the original second person, it is retained in chapter 2.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> It comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that I wrote the cliched identity porn superhero trope. I am sorry? (Not really.)  
> It does come as a surprise however, that I wrote RPF. I swore I wouldn't, but goddamn you, sabandadi, with you and your Larry tattoos and theories. 
> 
> This one's for you. Belated happy birthday!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis neglects to tell his boyfriend that he's also a superhero on the side. Oops?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Third person narration. Go to next chapter for the same story in second person narration.**

Harry doesn't know when it started, this burning all-consuming ball of fire and passion, but he’s sure something changed at the parade.

It was the Pride in London annual, and it had been televised that year amidst tumultuous times of changing government and public policy. He remembers watching from the cosy warmth of his living room. He could have been down there with everyone else, celebrating his right to love whomever. He has been out for years, but that morning, it is laziness more than fear keeping him at home.

Harry remembers seeing him then.

He remembers how small he had looked, how brave, how very fragile yet strong, masked, his blue chest plate and armor glinting, standing by his lonesome, frightened people running here to there behind him, the strong, shimmering bubble of protection enveloping that scared little girl being held to gun point by some crazy, right wing, homophobic nutcase with a deathwish.

A foolish, homophobic nutcase.

Because everyone knows HE doesn’t let you touch Pride.

Because everyone knows that the Knight is ferociously protective of London, and of the Pride parade in London.

It’s been three years since there’s been an incident during the event, and he is _always, always_ around, protecting, watching over his favorite city, merging into the shadows sometimes, but occasionally a traffic camera’s work or wary cellphone footage would make its way into the news.

They call him the Knight.

 _Harry_ calls him the Knight.

He’s saved Harry more than once, and is a literal knight in shining armor.

 *

London doesn’t know what to make of its resident superhero.

The Telegraph had labeled him the Knight after that photograph leaked, that iconic photo of him outside 10 Downing Street, bleeding from a bullet wound to the bicep, teeth gritted as he holds up his shield - a blue, floating wall of defense, a bubble of protection around the Prime Minister’s family, even as the Protection Command and MI5 agents scramble to subdue the shooter.

That photo had made its way to newspapers for days to come - the Knight of London, grievously injured, doing his duty through pain, protecting as many people as he could in the middle of crisis.

They call him a hero.

Harry’s never believed in heroes until HE came along, brave and bold and strong and small.  

Nobody knows how he does it - create spherical shields of protection, seemingly controlled with his mind, that shrink or grow at his will. Bullets don’t pass through the blue shimmers, neither do knives or other weapons. Inside one of his blue spheres, he can vanish at will and reappear.

That’s how he probably gets around - people think he lurks around the city, out of sight, invisible, him and his blue shields of protection, coming into sight right when people need him.

Many have tried to study those blue orbs of protection. Sometimes, he makes them as small as a football, strong, condensed and targeted weapons of destruction when he lunges them at his opponents. At other times, they have been large enough to envelope a truck, and he’s equally lethal with those. He once rolled over an approaching rogue jeep full of burglars with a large blue sphere.

Heat or cold seem to have no effect - he’s pulled people out of a burning hospital, enveloped within the confines of his blue shields.

That had been after saving a group of school children from an out-of-control bus and stopping a bank robbery. There’s no rest for superheros in a city this big.

He’s the bravest man Harry knows.

Even though Harry’s never met him, he thinks he _knows_ him.

 *

His eyes are blue.

His mask doesn’t cover his eyes. That’s what Harry notices the day he meets him. Everything else is blurry, but his eyes – Harry remembers his eyes in sharp detail.

He’s walking home from work on a late evening, through downtown, cutting through his usual route when a cloud of dust and cement blocks his path.

“Sir,” he says to Harry, even as he is gathering his wits, stunned into speechlessness, shocked. The Knight of London thrusts a bundle of crying baby into his arms. “Please get her to an ambulance. Medical help. I need to go back.”

His voice is like church bells ringing on a quiet morning, the sound permeating across a sleepy country town.

“Er- what?”

"I need to go back!”

Harry takes in the collapsing building in front of him, and the distant sound of sirens. Police, emergency, medical, fire - they are still all on their way but the Knight of London is already at the scene, pulling people out of the _collapsing building._

More bystanders come forward, and a crowd gathers around the pavement, people with their cellphones out, calling family and police, scrambling to help, trying to keep children away.

The baby in his arms starts fussing, so he gently hold her closer, shushing and murmuring, realizing that the Knight - that he had spoken to Harry through gritted teeth, sweat dripping down the side of his mask….

….because he had been holding up on part of the building with his glowing shield, round orbs dotting various places of the building where it’s gaping open, the collapsed load-bearing wall and broken concrete replaced by the strength of his will.

Harry takes a deep breath, and try to internalize: _he is holding up a building._

“Arrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhh!” Harry hears the long, pain-filled groan, and he has got an elderly woman climbed on him like in a piggy back ride, and a small girl in his arms. Harry sees some of the stragglers approaching to help people off of him, and without a pause for breath, _he goes back again._

Londoners around him form a line from the gaping mouth of the building to the ambulances that have arrived at the curb. The Knight goes in and comes back with more people, and the Londoners - hasty volunteers, help triage survivors and put people in ambulances.

 Harry’s so proud of his city, and in that moment, his eyes meet the Knight’s blue ones, and Harry just knows, he is proud too.

 *

He tracks Harry down after that.

It takes a few weeks, and Harry’s on his coffee break, nursing a cup by the side of the building. It is warm enough to stand outside in the middle of the night, and he needs the fresh air.

“Harry Styles?” his voice comes out of nowhere, and as beautiful it is, he jumps two feet in the air.

“I am sorry, did I startle you?”

It is beautiful. It is the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard, and he grew up on Nessun Dorma.

“Jesus.”

“I came to say thank you.”

“Are you - what - are you - huh?”

“I am - very grateful for your help during the Escalion fiasco. The building collapse?”

“I know what the Escalion is,” Harry finally manages.you finally manage. “Are _you_ seriously thanking _me?”_

“Everyone counts,” he says, and Harry can feel it, he can _feel_ himself falling in love. “I also wanted to check up on Darcy.”

“Huh?” Harry’s still shock, and he knows that in a few minutes, he will be pinching himself for coming across as a complete idiot in front of his hero.

“The baby? I gave her to you in the middle of everything.”

“Right,” he says, finally finding his tongue. He chased him down to ask after _a baby._ He knows _her name._ “She was okay. Her mother was rescued in the next round, and I made sure she - Darcy - was matched with her. She had a bruise on her leg, but she was okay.”

“Thank you.”

“You really need to stop thanking _me.”_

“Everyone counts,” he says again. “Everything we do, everything we can do - it counts.”

“I really - you are something else.”

He laughs, and Harry changes his mind about the best sound in the world. His speaking voice just got bumped down to second place. Harry sort of wants to hear him laugh for the rest of his life.

He wrecks his brain for something to say, and then, he remembers the one thing he’s always wanted to ask the Knight of London.

“Are you sleeping properly?”

“I am sorry?” he asks, and his blue eyes in the mask look up at Harry’s face. He is shorter than Harry. He is so small, and yet, he routinely throws himself in front of bullets.

“I know people thank you for your service all the time,” Harry explains, and the words sound stupid even to his own ears. “I know a lot of people ask about who you are or how you got your powers. I know you get that a lot.

“I always figured, if I ever met you, I would ask you something that people actually want to know. That I want to know.”

“People want to know if I am sleeping properly?”

“A lot of people in the city - _love_ you. They love what you do for us. But a lot of us worry about you too.”

“People - _worry_ about me,” he states, and his voice is colored with disbelief, like he is waiting for you to throw the punchline of an elaborate joke. You sigh.

“You are spotted across the city all night,” he explains. “And you are out in daylight too sometimes. People worry if you ever sleep. Or if you eat properly.”

“I eat fine.”

“Good to know.”

“You are pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

“Cross my heart,” Harry swears. “There are forums on the internet, of fans I guess. People you’ve saved, or people who believe in you. They want you to be well.”

He laughs again, and Harry’s heart thrills at the sound.

“That’s - nice, I guess. Weird, but nice.”

“Is there anything I can do for you? Can I help?”

“You have helped. That’s why I came to say thank you.”

“I mean - more, anything - here, I am a resident at King’s College Hospital. I am a doctor. If you are ever injured, and if you need medical help -”

“Thank you.”

“I can be discreet, I promise,” Harry is word-vomiting now, and the Knight is looking at him strangely, but he _needs_ to get this out, he _needs_ to let him know how much he means to people, how much he means to _Harry._

“You want to help me?”

“Yes.”

“You are a doctor, Harry Styles?”

“I am a doctor.”

“You are a very cute doctor,” he says, and Harry’s heart nearly jumps out of his skin. He’s gaping at the superhero, not knowing how to respond, what to say -

“Thank you for your offer, Dr. Styles,” he laughs again. There’s a brush against Harry’s hand, and suddenly his nearly-full coffee cup is out of his hands.

“Mmm, hazelnut,” the Knight says, bringing the cup close his mask-covered face. “Lovely. I hope you don’t mind my stealing your latte. Good night!”

In a blur of blue light, he’s gone. Harry stands there in the alleyway, hand wrapping around the ghost of a cup that’s no longer there, breathing through the fluttering in his chest.

*

He goes about his life normally after that, or as normally as possible after offering a superhero steals your coffee.

He wakes up in the morning and makes breakfast in his dingy little kitchen, Grimshaw’s voice greeting early risers on the radio, some new indie pop song catching the nation’s fancy.

He walks to work, gets to the hospital, and does his patient rounds. Harry’s still a resident, and that means he does a lot of scutwork, filling out patient charts and taking medical histories, running labs, studying and learning.

Sometimes, during a lunch break or while catching the distant sound of a news report from a television in a patient room, Harry will think of him and wonder what he’s doing, if he’s alright, if he’s really sleeping well, if he smiles when he sings along to the radio in the morning, if he sings along to the radio at all..

Harry calls his mum and sister during the weekends, and meets with mates for a drink, and returns to work on Monday, excited and energetic.

He doesn’t date, because The Knight has effectively ruined him for other men. He’s given Harry impossible standards that normal people have no chance of meeting, and even though he understands that the Knight is not someone he can practically ever _have_ in that way - it’s a pipedream – Harry still can’t muster up the interest or inclination to date _anyone_ else.

It will pass.

He’s sure it will pass. Mostly.

*

Gemma badgers him into a blind date she’s set up.

He says no, he makes his excuses, Harry tells her he’s got a shift at the hospital, but she won’t back down this time.

“Mum’s worried about you,” she says. “And I sort of promised her I will try to get you to have a life.”

“I am a pediatric resident,” he huffs at her on the phone. “I don’t get to have a life for another four years.”

“Yes, yes, I have heard the speech before. Look,” she says. “It’s just one night. It will make mum happy, it will get me off the hook with her, and you’ll at least get a nice meal at a restaurant.”

“Gem-”

“He’s a nice guy,” she says. “He is Ella’s kindergarten teacher, and Niall’s best friend. You remember Niall?”

“Loud Irish and drunk?”

“There you go,” she laughs. “Hi mum told ours that he’s been feeling kind of low lately, and he’s sort of unwillingly agreed to this date as well, so the two of you have that in common.”

“Gemma,” Harry sighs, pressing the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. “Why would you set me up on a date with someone who doesn’t want to date?”

“Do _you_ want to date?”

“No.”

"You’re perfect for each other,” she says. “It’s one bloody date, Harry.”

“Fine,” he mutters. “But I will get you back for this.”

“Yes, feel free to find me a hot guy any time.”

“Ewww Gems, you’re never allowed to date. _Ever.”_

“Bye now, ta.”

*

The first time Harry sees him, the proper _him,_ the _other_ him, he says hello and shake hands. His eyes - so blue, so very blue - widen in panic. In the moment, Harry writes it off as date nerves, but he will look back at this interaction one day and feel like an idiot.

His name, he says in a voice that’s familiar and foreign, that’s a couple of octaves deeper than Harry’s heart from his alter-ego, is Louis Tomlinson.

Lou-iee.

It’s beautiful.

Harry’d figured that if he ever met the Knight without his mask, he’d have a beautiful name. Harry doesn’t yet know how right he is.

Harry will swear, months down the line, in the middle of a screaming match, _how could you. How could you keep up this charade._

Harry will be angrier with himself than with Louis. He will beat himself up over how he didn’t recognize those eyes, sparkling in the restaurant’s candle light. Months later, he will wonder how he didn’t _know_ that voice - that voice like church bells and smooth as a baby’s skin - even disguised into a deep baritone – that voice that he wants to fall asleep hearing for the rest of his life.

But that’s still months into the future.

For now though, he sits across a table over pasta and zucchini and wine, and coaxes answers out of a shy, beautiful man, with familiar blue eyes.

*

One date turns into coffee and lunch and even a Sunday’s trip to the museum.

Louis is - unlike anyone Harry has ever known, unlike anyone he’s ever met. When Harry’s with him, he takes up all of his attention, he consumes him, mind, body and soul. Harry has never been so taken with anyone as he’s with Louis.

But Louis is so very guarded.

Oh, he’s loud and boisterous and wild, and very annoying when he wants to be; but Harry can’t shake the feeling that he’s not being shown the real Louis Tomlinson, like he hasn’t earned the right yet.

Because Louis is also kind and generous and loyal, so very loyal, and his eyes sparkle when he calls his sisters (religiously, every day). His mother - Jay, Anne’s friend from a long time ago - is protective and loving, and Harry can tell nobody’s opinion matters to Louis as much as hers does.

Harry had gone on that date hoping for a pleasant meal and maybe one night’s sex. It’s six weeks in, and they’ve barely done more than some heavy necking (even though he wants to, dear Lord, he wants to, because have you _seen_ that arse?), but it feels surprisingly okay.

*

The Knight of London sits on Harry’s balcony one rainy evening, blue chest plate and mask in place, legs crossed and one booted foot tapping out a rhythm on the floor.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees the figure in pale blue crouched on his balcony, but after getting his heart rate under control, he goes out to say hello.

“Come to steal more coffee?” Harry asks, and he laughs. The knight’s laugh is a beautiful sound, like pears dancing on a marble floor, and the sound warms his limbs.

“Only if you have hazelnut syrup.”

He seems surreal, almost, his silhouette glowing against the pouring rain. Harry thinks of London as _his_ city, but it has never been his, not really. It is the Knight’s city in the realest way possible. He’s protective of this city, and the city is protective of him. He is ours, and Londoners pride themselves on how he is part of the cityscape on some nights, standing aloft on the Big Ben, showing up holding on to the side of the Gherkin, sometimes, even taking the Underground, and once memorably, carrying a crying toddler down from the London Eye.

It never stops raining in London, in the Knight’s city, and Harry thinks the purpose of the rain perhaps is to envelope it’s hero the way it is doing now, to give him that backdrop of majesty, to be the background score to the sound of his voice.

It’s like the world rearranges itself to make room for his goodness.

“Better put that on the grocery list,” Harry smiles, feeling so happy and content in this moment. He has a boyfriend who’s amazing, his career feels like it’s finally going somewhere, and the Knight of London is on his balcony to keep out of the rain.

“How have you been?” he asks Harry.

“Excellent, thanks to you.”

His eyes widen under the mask, and Harry explains, “that bomb in Newcastle? Thank you.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” he sits back.

“What kind of life do you lead where you _forget about defusing a bomb?”_

He laughs again. “All in a night’s work.”

“I worry about you.”

“So you have told me,” he says. “Along with my legions of fans on the internet.”

“You had a big gash on your side after that mess in Southwark,” Harry points out, never wanting to relive that night. His heart had nearly stopped that night, when Harry had seen him on television taking on a giant of a man - where are all these villains _coming from?_ _I_ n one moment’s distraction to protect a foolish civilian, the Knight had taken a forceful hit.

He’d gone careening across the street, and gotten tossed against a _building_.

Harry’d thrown up three times that night, paralyzed by fear and worry, made worse because Louis had gone out to see Lottie. Harry had to stay alone on that _horrible_ night, and he’d missed Louis’ arms around him.

“Are you stalking me now, Dr. Styles?”

“The entire internet, the police force and the _government_ is stalking you, Mr. Knight. My interest is purely out of a sense of duty as your doctor.”

“I never agreed to you being my doctor.”

“Tough luck.”

“Something tells me you’re going to be a pain-in-the-ass kind of doctor.”

“I mainly work with five year old children,” Harry laughs. “I only have trouble with problematic, stubborn, self-destructive adults.”

“You are in pediatrics?”

Harry hums in agreement. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine,” Harry cannot see, but he knows he’s rolling his eyes. Harry doesn’t ever think too much about how he knows the Knight so well, how he just _understands_ the Knight and his mannerisms, and until a few months into the future, he won’t have an answer. “Next time I get thrown at a building, I will seek medical help.”

“Was that so hard?”

“You have no idea.”

“Seriously,” Harry asks. “Do you want to come in for a cuppa? My boyfriend buys the best Yorkshire, he’s addicted to the stuff, kind of a tea snob if you ask me, it would be entirely annoying if it weren’t adorable - do you want to come in?”

“I think he has excellent taste,” the Knight laughs. “Boyfriend, eh?”

Harry realizes how casually the word slipped out, especially since he and Louis haven’t yet talked about what they are to each other. The irony, that the reference slipped out for the first time, in a conversation with the Knight, wouldn't hit him for a few months yet.

“It’s - still new,” Harry blushes despite himself, feeling odd that this is somehow his life. “He’s nice. I think it might go somewhere.”

“Good on you,” the Knight says, and he smiles, “can I take that tea in a to-go mug, if you’ve got it? I gotta - rescue kittens.”

“You don’t do that.”

“You’d be surprised how many people suck at taking care of their pets.”

“You are very odd, Mr. Knight.”

“Sure, makes balls of light shields is all fine and dandy.  Rescuing kittens, and suddenly I am the odd one.”

Harry laughs, and even after the Knight vanishes from his apartment clutching Harry’s princess to-go mug, he hears the echo of the pearly laughter laughter ringing in the house.

*

That night, Louis calls Harry over to his place, sounding cheerful and smiley.

He brings a bottle of wine cradled in one arm. Louis opens the door, and framed in the doorway, he looks so heart breakingly beautiful that Harry wants to weep.

Louis pulls him inside, and after dinner, he leads an astonished Harry by the hand to the bedroom. Harry is sure he is about die of anticipation.

“I am so - grateful that you were patient with me,” Louis whispers in his ear, standing close, the lines of their bodies pressing close together, in a voice that Harry will have dreams about. “I needed it to go slow. But, if you still want me, I think I am ready.”

 _If you still want me._ He cannot believe that this creature exists, and what’s more, he now has permission to touch.

“Unn-grrugghh,” is Harry’s highly coherent, intelligent reply, and Louis laughs, unbuttoning Harry’s shirt and shrugging out of his own.

“You’re beautiful,” Harry says to him that night, hardly daring to believe his own good fortune, tongue mapping out every inch of Louis’ golden skin. Harry holds him tight, allowing Louis to entirely fall apart, body jostling with Harry moving inside him, thrusting gentle and deep. Through it all, something itches at the back of Harry’s mind, _I am missing something. I cannot see what, but I am missing something._

The next morning, Harry kisses him goodbye and leaves to work. He’s distracted by the taste of Louis’ lips and the curve of his arse, so he doesn’t notice the princess to-go mug sitting sneakily behind the tin of cookies on the kitchen counter.

*

Louis keeps standing him up on dates.

This is another one of those things Harry will feel stupid about in the future. He will spend an entire day charting out dates when the Knight was definitely seen out and about, rescuing people and capturing gunmen, and he’ll compare them against days when Louis didn’t show up to a movie or the museum or a restaurant.

In the future, he will sigh and accept that if his love life is taking a hit, at least it’s for the greater good.

In the present, he just frets in anxiety that he’s more invested in this relationship than Louis is, that he just doesn’t feel that way about Harry, and that he’s about to have his heart broken.

He will lie awake at nights, trying to reconcile the sincerity that Louis infuses into every kiss, with the excuses - forgot to put money in the parking meter is his favorite one yet.

There is a horrible, _horrible_ week when Harry thinks he is being cheated on, and he pours out his sorrows to the Knight of all people, one evening when patching him up from a stab wound. It’s horrific that he’s sort of turned into Harry’s relationship counselor.

The Knight of London.

He cannot believe this is his life.

“He said he _forgot to put money in the parking meter,”_ Harry grits out through clenched teeth, trying to not focus on the fact that his fingers are pressing against an artery inside the Knight’s body. “Can you believe it? He is going to dump me, and the asshole can’t summon up the courage to do it properly.”

“You think - ungghh - you think he’s going to break up with you?” There is panic bleeding into the Knight’s voice, but Harry figures it’s probably due to the knife that was sticking out of his hip a few moments ago rather than the travails of his love life.

“London got rid of parking meters in 2008,” Harry explains, finishing the suture, secure that the bleeding has stopped. He rips off the gloves, reaching for the dressing.

The Knight’s skin is hot and flushed under Harry’s hands, and what he can see of it - he’s taken the armor off, and is holding up the skin tight blue shirt to let the doctor work - is golden, but pale from blood loss. His body feels familiar even through the professionally detached lens that Harry tries to keep on for the entirety of their doctor-patient sessions.

“Maybe,” the Knight says, “he really had something else to do, and couldn’t tell you about it.”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Harry exclaims, the realization causing an upward spiral of panic, “he is sleeping with someone else, isn’t he?”

“No!” The Knight exclaims and Harry looks up at him, surprised. “I mean, I don’t think it’s likely from everything you’ve told me. Why do you always jump to the worst possible conclusion?”

“What else could it be?” he asks, closing up the dressing. “He said he couldn’t make it to my step-dad’s birthday today because his dog-sitter canceled at the last minute. He doesn’t _have a dog!”_

“What do you need from him, Styles?”

“I dunno,” he says, tugging down the bloody blue shirt over the secure wound. “Some sort of indication that he’s in this for real, that he isn’t just screwing around with me. Keep that dry, would you? And make sure you come back here in two weeks and I will take those stitches out. Nothing strenuous for at least 72 hours.”

“Sure doc,” he smiles at Harry through his mask. The doctor passes him a bottle of painkillers, and writes out instructions on a legal pad. Two weeks after meeting the Knight, he had started the habit of hoarding painkiller samples and ointment tubes from work. They have come in handy for each of the Knight’s visits.

“Look alive, doc,” he waves goodbye, and vanishes off the balcony.

Harry throws the blood-stained towels into the washer, and thinks about how this is his life.

*

Harry’s having a terrible work day - little Sara has leukemia, and they can’t find her a marrow transplant in time, and if there’s anything he hates, it’s the cancer cases; he hates them, he feels helpless, and his mood isn’t improved by the fact that he spent the entire morning looking over Sara’s lab reports, and he’s just getting to the point of hating everything about his life - when he  sees Louis standing by the residents’ lounge doorway with a brown paper bag.

“I’ve never been happier to see you,” he nearly collapses into his arms. He feels warm against Harry’s skin, and he’s wearing his bulky brown overcoat, the one he wears when it’s particularly cold out. Harry hates it, because it hides away the shape of his body, and it reminds him just how insecure Louis is about that sort of thing.

“Aww, poor dear,” he coos, pulling his surgery cap free and petting Harry’s curls. “Having a bad day, Dr. Styles?”

Now that’s just not fair. He knows what it does to Harry when he calls him by his title.

“What are you doing here?”

“Bringing you lunch,” he says, dragging Harry inside the deserted residents’ lounge and plopping down on a couch. He begins pulling Tupperware boxes out of the brown paper bag. “Lasagna, and there’s also some soup in here with garlic bread. Everything is still hot.”

“You are the best,” Harry says to him, sitting cross-legged, sideways on the couch. “Best boyfriend ever. You’re getting so much sex tonight. Did you cook?”

“Don’t worry,” he laughs. “Danielle did. I called in a favor.”

They eat in silence, companionable and pleasant, and Harry is nearly back to feeling like a human being again, his stomach full, and Louis’s warm hand clasped in his left. Sometimes, he thinks about how being with Louis has turned him into a simple man – having Louis’ undivided attention on him, over a warm meal and a blanket makes him giddily content these days.

Louis divvies up the garlic bread, looking at Harry through unsure eyes, taking him in. Six months ago, Harry would have been uncomfortable at the scrutiny, but he has most of their relationship starved for Louis’ notice, and it feels like being home.

“I wanted to apologize,” he says, taking Harry by surprise. “I know I haven’t been the best boyfriend lately - I _am_ sorry about missing Robin’s birthday. It’s just - I have things going on at work, and I was applying for another job at King’s College as a professor, so I have been nervous about that. I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to wait till it was finalized.”

“Congratulations!” Harry beams at him. He is _so happy_ for him; he cannot believe he was worried _yesterday_ that this marvelous creature was going to break up with him.

Of course, months down the line, Harry will scream bloody murder at him for using intel that _his boyfriend_ gave the Knight to fix his love life, but for the moment, he laughs with Louis, and asks him all about the new job.

The pair of them spend half an hour giggling like teenagers in the lounge, and a part of Harry wants to ravish him right there, and another part of him is content to just bask in his company, their hands brushing against each other, sending thrills up Harry’s spine.

It feels like new beginnings.

*

They are both possessive lovers.

Louis gets a weird expression on his face every time Harry talks about the Knight.  The rest of Harry’s friends and family think it’s harmless hero worship, and maybe a bit of an unhealthy crush, but Louis never, _ever_ talks about it.

He glosses over the Knight poster on Harry’s bedroom wall, and the small action figure on his work desk. His apartment keys are on a Knight keyring, and Louis just rolls his eyes at that.

When Harry tells him he’d met the Knight, or that he’d had coffee with him, those are the nights Louis takes him to the bedroom and makes him forget everything except his name. Harry usually spends the subsequent day or two limping, the waistband of his jeans rubbing against irritated skin peppered with bitemarks, his limbs sore, sometimes blue and purple, but entirely unable to suppress the indecently wide grin on his face.

The day Louis comes to Harry’s with a bright lipstick stain on the curve of his jaw is the day they have their first fight - a screaming, all-out, rage filled showdown that they’re both ashamed about later.

Louis says he didn’t even know the lipstick was there, and makes up a cock-and-bull story about crashing into a woman in the elevator - he is very accident-prone, he constantly shows up with bruises and cuts (another one of those things that make Harry feel like an idiot in the future) - and it takes three days, a lot of groveling and a bouquet of flowers before Harry can even look at him.

He will never stop being insecure about whether Louis is in it for real, and that rears its ugly head after the lipstick incident.

This feeling of possessiveness will only intensify after Harry finds out about the big secret. Weeks later, Harry will understand that fans, the people the Knight rescues, sometimes hit on him, and sometimes, over-eager women plant one on him in the rush of adrenaline, and even though he _understands,_ _he_ will sulk about it, and in turn, he will spend late evenings and early mornings marking Louis’ hips, his neck, his dainty ankles and the curve of his bum with sharp teeth mercilessly torturing flesh till bruises blossom as flags of possessive ownership.

Harry will spend days worrying about his unhealthy impulse control issues before realizing that Louis is jealous of his _own alter-ego,_ and feel better.

Even then, he won’t be able to believe how this is his life.

*

Harry’s frustrated constantly about his relationship going nowhere.

He’s dropped hints about possibly moving in together, or at least, to talk about the possibility. Louis is a stone-faced, cold, immovable bastard.

He’s ignoring the subject, and he’s masterfully avoiding it every time Harry brings it up.

He feels like he’s stuck in a vacuum with no future, and he’s terrified because he’s been in such relationships before. He always, _always_ fall harder and faster than the other person.

This time though, it feels different. Harry doesn’t want to let this one go.

He can see a future with Louis. He doesn’t think he will ever meet another person who understands him like Louis does (except the Knight, but who is he kidding, that’s never going to happen. It’s perfectly alright to have his heart divided in two, and love Louis with one half and a superhero with the other. What? Yes, it is. It’s perfectly alright.)

Harry spends most of January extremely confused, loving two men, feeling guilty about loving two men, but failing at imagining a world in which he could love only one of them.

So, he has a boyfriend who is commitment phobic to the extreme, and he sometimes patches up a superhero he is also in love with. The said superhero also shamelessly flirts with him and gives him relationship advice.

He cannot believe this is his life.

*

On a late spring day, he watches a live news report, with his heart in his throat, as the Knight takes a plummeting from a mutant dinosaur trying to colonize the Thames.

This is the world now, with mutant creatures and science gone wrong and villains with enhanced powers robbing banks.

The right-wing media keeps pointing out that none of these weirdos showed up before the Knight. Harry knows, from years of growing up on comic books, that where there are heroes, there are villains.

He understands that.

But it does nothing to prepare him for the gut wrenching fear when he sees the superhero take a beating. The Knight is out of his weight class on this one, and even though that’s usually his M.O. – the Knight is always taking on guys who are several times bigger than him - this time feels lethal in a real way.

Harry rushes out in the middle of his shift, begging Liam to cover for him and gets to his apartment to find the Knight bleeding all over his couch.

“Bloody wanking fuck -” he curses up a storm, rushing to the medkit he’s stashed in the cupboard. “You fucking self-destructive git -”

“Hello Dr. Styles how do you do, I am fine too, thanks for asking.” He breathes out, trying to grin through the pain because he’s a fucking self-destructive git. The rasp in his throat, the pallor of his skin, and the goddamn gash down the side of his skull all tell Harry important medical indications, but his hands are shaking. There is a reason why Doctors aren’t allowed to treat loved ones.

He breathes through his nose – three-two-one, and reaches for the medkit with steady hands.

“Your boyfriend called. I wrote a message down. Sorry, got blood on your phone,” says the superhero on his couch who’s _bleeding out._

He cannot believe this is his life now.

“For the love of all that’s holy -” Harry cusses. “What the fuck are you doing answering my goddamn phone, Jesus Christ, you should be focussing on not bleeding to death.”

He reaches for the pad in a quick second, and reads the mad scribble on the blood stained notepad - _have to attend conference in glasgow, be gone two days, love you -_ and turns to the vigilante superhero on his sofa.

He’s got his mask on, and the armor is slashed from dinosaur claws ( _He would like to reiterate how this is his life now) and_ the fabric of the under suit is sticking to his skin with blood. Harry  finds a pair of scissors and unapologetically cuts him out of his top.

In his focus to _treat his patient_ , and the ensuing panic to stop the bleeding, he doesn’t realize just how familiar that chest is under his hands. He doesn’t observe that those nipples are a tad too familiar, that he in fact, bit them till they were sore and puffy just that morning.

The Knight is cut in too many places, dislocated his shoulder, and broken a bone in his right arm.

Harry fixes him up the best he can with his supplies at hand, and gets him into the bedroom, and keeps vigil. He opens orthopedic textbooks, and reads through procedures till he’s fairly confident he can perform, and in the morning, Harry gets the Knight to bite down on Louis’ leather belt while he forces his arm back into its socket.

Harry throws up in the toilet after the Knight passes out on his bed, feeling woefully ill-equipped to treat this man, who is family and friend and something more. But when he watches the hero sleeping in his bed like he _trusts_ Harry, he feels something pleasant settle in his chest.

The Knight is up on his feet after eighteen hours. Accelerated healing, he says. He’s got the genes of a mutant, and the doctor in Harry wants a sample while the friend in him feels ferociously protective of this man.

He insists on leaving, against Harry’s better medical judgement. But he lets him go, with gauze, painkillers, detailed instructions and a box of soup. Harry has seen how much the Knight eats in one sitting, and he knows he will be bloody starving in a few hours.

Harry tries not to think about how, when the Knight vanishes off his balcony, it feels like a piece of his heart is gone with him.

He has known for a while that he’s in love with two men. Louis keeps him grounded, with his eyes and laughter and heart. He is genuine, loyal, kind and endlessly forgiving. He is everything Harry dreams of for a lifetime kind of commitment, for love that endures.

But the Knight is everything that is covetable in a man, he is a symbol of everything that’s good about the world even when the world proves to Harry that it doesn’t deserve saving.

The Knight is about dreams and ideals, everything that he read about in fairy tales and childhood stories and whispered anecdotes, he is the laughter of a child and the glory of the Sun, he is everything that makes being human worthwhile.

He makes Harry want to be better.

Harry doesn’t know what makes him go out there and risk his life every night, but he does.

Sometimes, he wonders if he has family that worries, if he has a wife or a husband, if he has children or siblings or next door neighbors that notice if he’s gone. Harry wonders what those people will feel if he fails at his job, if one day, the Knight will turn up on his balcony bleeding out and there will be nothing the doctor in him can do.

He wonders if he can go on after losing the Knight.

He wonders how long he can keep feeling guilty about being in love with two men.

He wonders….

*

He is sitting on his couch (the one on which a superhero nearly bled out a month ago, he cannot believe _this is his life_ ) viciously attacking a pint of chocolate ice cream, angry and moments away from crying into the cushions when there is a knock on the window.

The Knight is floating, three stories above ground, on level with Harry’s window in one of his blue spheres of protection, grinning. He’s holding flowers in one hand and ice-cream in another.

The flowers are blue peonies. Louis is the only person in the world who knows Harry’s a weirdo who likes blue peonies.

He opens the window to let him in. That nagging voice in Harry’s mind gets louder - _you’re missing something._

“I brought ice-cream,” the Knight holds out the box, condensation sweeping along on the sides.

“Good, I am nearly out.”

Harry settles back on the couch, annoyed at being interrupted in his sulk, and turn up the volume on the television.

“The flowers are also for you. Can I sit down?”

"Knock yourself out.”

“Aren’t you always telling me not to do that?”

Harry smiles despite himself.

“What do you want, hero boy?”

“Figured you’d like some company,” he says, shrugging.

“Slow crime night?”

“One train accident in the evening. Couple of burglaries, a broken water main.”

“You’re kidding. You’re a plumber now?”

“All sorts of skills are needed in the superheroing line.”

“I’m sure. Share the ice cream, jerk.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My boyfriend is a prize git.”

“What’d he do now?”

“He walked out on me in the middle of dinner,” Harry complains, shoving another spoonful in his mouth. “I went the goddamn distance. Made reservations. Bought him a present. Found his favorite cologne. I called _his mother._ Does he remember it’s Valentine’s day? No.”

“I really wouldn’t want to be your boyfriend right now,” he says, and he says it oddly, like it’s a joke, and Harry hates him a little bit for it. “I am sure he’s wishing he could make it up to you somehow.”

“He can make it up to me by bloody staying till the end of a meal,” he sounds embarrassingly close to tears now, and cannot bring himself to care. “I don’t know what I am doing wrong.”

“I am sure you aren’t doing anything wrong,” the Knight says, sounding sad. “Whatever it is, it’s on him.”

“He’s perfect,” Harry defends him, even though he started this conversation by calling Louis a prize git. “He’s absolutely perfect. Somehow, I keep screwing it up with him. I do something or say something and he takes off like a building’s on fire.”

“Train,” Knight mutters, sounding distant.

“What?”

“Nothing, sorry,” he says. “For what it’s worth,” he gets up and hands him the peonies. “Happy Valentines’ Day.”

Harry blushes, not knowing what to make of it, not daring to hope, and most of all, just - missing Louis, missing him so much. He brushes away the treacherous tears that have made their way down his cheeks, and looks up at the Knight through watery eyes.

The Knight of London looks glorious, and he looks at Harry like he cannot believe he exist. He looks terrified.

What does a superhero have to be terrified about, Harry wonders, just as he looms closer and kisses him on the lips, gentle.

Harry is stunned speechless for a moment but the Knight is kissing Harry like he’s going to snap him out of it with his mouth, and good Lord, he probably could… Harry kisses him right back, because he is feeling miserable and sad and lonely, and because he misses his boyfriend who’s being a prize git, and the Knight feels good against him, his mouth warm and wet and open and familiar…

So familiar..

...no.

No.

_Oh bloody wanking fuck no._

It all comes crashing down around his ears in the duration of this one earth-shattering kiss, like the world has tilted on its axis and resettled into place, everything bright and sharp in increased resolution and defined clarity. Everything makes sense, and the crushing heavy betrayal sits sour on his tongue.

Harry’s heart thuds loudly in his chest, fighting to break through his ribcage.

He pushes him off, and with one shaking hand, reaches up and tugs at the mask covering the Knight’s upper face. Something tells him that he doesn’t need to.

He knows this man.

He knows him very well.

Or maybe, he doesn’t know him at all..

They stay like that in the little corner of their apartment, Harry on his couch, breathing hard and deep, letting the tears fall, looking up at the superhero in his living room, pale in a blue suit, blue peonies fallen to the side, silence stretching.

Harry knows this man. But he doesn’t know him at all.

He weeps.

*

The world mutes into black and white after that.

The weeks after Harry throws him out of the apartment, out of his life… Harry doesn’t have any recollection of those weeks. He goes to work, he sees patients, he does his rotations like an automaton. Sometimes he eats, sometimes he sleeps. Most nights, he lies awake staring at his ceiling waiting for dawn.

He loves two men.

He has always loved two men.

That’s the horrible reality of the day, that he still loves two men, and he always will. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

Because there is no part of his life that one or the other hasn’t taken over. The hospital, his apartment, the bedsheets, the shampoo in Harry’s shower, they are all permeated with the memories of one of them.

The other fills his every waking moment, and stares out at him from newspapers in the lobby and news reports on the television. Harry sees him in the blue plastic wrapper of gauze rolls, in the flushed scarlet of dripping blood in the emergency room, in the pale blue skies of a beautiful day. Everywhere Harry turns, he sees his eyes. Their eyes.

He loves two men.

He didn’t know they were one and the same, but he loves two men.

*

The betrayal stings the hardest, even though Harry understands the reasoning behind _secret identity._

He puts it together not long after that. He spends nearly a day on the internet, matching dates of Knight appearances and Louis’ canceled dates, unfinished dinners and stood up picnics.

Harry realizes he’s never seen the two of them together. The Knight has never visited him when he’s been curled up in Louis’ arms. The Knight’s never had a medical emergency when Louis’ been balls deep in his arse.

How convenient.

Everything feels like a lie.

Harry remembers that lunch all those months ago, when Louis came bundling up to the residents’ lounde with pasta and soup, and how he’d fallen for it. How he’d believed that Louis wanted him, that he isn’t in it just for fun, he’s in it for the long run.

 _Of course_ he brought Harry lunch and made a grand romantic gesture.

Harry had told _him_ what he needed to do.

The Knight is a sucky relationship counselor and Harry wants to punch his stupid masked face.

He stays away from the news and the internet after that. He doesn’t want to know what he’s doing with his powers, he doesn’t want to know if he’s been given the key to the city, or made a mascot for the cricket team or been called to speak at the U.N.

Harry hates his stupid face. Harry loves them both, but argh, he hates that stupid face, masked or unmasked.

He cannot believe this is his life.

*

Gemma tries to get him to go on other dates.

Harry doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s entirely fucking ruined for other men.

All those months ago, before meeting Louis, he had thought he would never be satisfied with _anyone._ The man he wanted was the one who regularly put his own life in danger to protect strangers. Harry had been certain that was never going to be trumped, but Louis had come along – so kind, so generous, so mysterious, so beautiful, absurdly perfect in every way.

Harry had been sure Louis was a once in a lifetime miracle.

Now, Harry knows why Louis met his standards. But it also means that Harry can’t go on a date with a stockbroker or pharmaceutical sales agent, or an actor.

He is a snob who’s been ruined by the most perfect pair of men in the universe.

Harry hates that he still thinks of them as two people.

*

He is getting used to coming home to a cold, empty apartment.

But tonight, Harry has got the Knight of London bleeding on this couch again.

“I will leave if you want me to,” he croaks out while Harry’s frozen in the doorway. “But I had nowhere else to go, I am sorry - please - sorry -”

He rushes to the medkit because he’s goddamn _doctor_ , and because there is no universe in which Harry can stand by and watch this man die, and because he _is_ that much of a fool in love, and because there is no version of Harry Styles that does not love a version of Louis Tomlinson.

Even when he hates his stupid face.

The Knight has got a bit of rebar sticking through his stomach, and it hasn’t nicked anything important, but Harry wants scans to be sure.

He treats the hero the best he can, throws an old shirt and trousers at him and marches his ass to the hospital. The Knight cannot get scans or a blood test, but Louis goddamn Tomlinson will sit quietly through every test Harry throws at him or so help him God.

Just for his sins, Harry admits him and keeps him overnight, entirely ignoring whines of _‘I am perfectly fine Haz, it’s just a graze.’_

So sue him, he’s a vindictive bastard.

He cannot believe this is his life.

*

He opens his mailbox every week to different things.

Apology presents, flowers, books, tickets to his favorite movies, letters and cards and more flowers.

Harry throws it all in the trash.

He burns the letters and cards. There’s no point in taking risks, so he helps in protecting the stupid ass secret identity.

Apparently, it takes Louis five weeks to figure out that Harry doesn’t want expensive flowers or apologies in the mail. He shows up on Harry’s doorstep on day two of week six (not that he’s counting) and asks to come inside.

Harry steps aside to let him in and wordlessly goes back to his textbooks.

“I am sorry,” Louis says, shamefaced and desperate. “I should have trusted you. I should have told you the truth. I was a horrible boyfriend, a terrible friend and a worse relationship counselor.”

Harry stays silent, trying to hate his stupid face.

“I hurt you, and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll have me.”

Louis looks at him, earnest and open, honest in a way neither one of them have been for the duration of their relationship. Harry hates that he still thinks of _them_ as two different people.

“I miss you,” he says. “I miss waking up to you in the morning. I miss having you yell at me about leaving the towel on the floor. I miss you fretting when I get hurt, I miss bringing you ice cream through the window, I miss sitting with you on the balcony, I miss laughing with you and loving you and making love to you. I cannot work, I cannot sleep, I cannot be a goddamn superhero without you. Please tell me what I need to do for you to take me back.”

Harry kisses him because what else is there to do? He’s angry, oh, he’s so angry, and it’s unlikely to go away anytime soon, and he is going to feel stupid every time he sees the Knight in that stupid mask, but the world is grey when they aren’t a part of Harry’s life, and he’s so tired of missing the color of their eyes.

Of Louis’ eyes.

Louis smiles against Harry’s lips.

“Ground rules,” Harry says, whispered and quiet, brushing Louis’ mouth with the pads of his thumbs.

“Anything.”

“You tell me the truth,” Harry says. “All of it. Without exception, without omission. You won’t lie to me, especially about your goddamn health. You will make time for at least one date a week, and you won’t run away every time we try to have a serious conversation.”

“I promise.”

“You will stop doing that - the fake deep voice thing, you dick. You are not fooling anyone. Any more, I mean, shut up.”

Louis laughs, face buried in Harry’s shoulder.

“I am sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t mean to make you feel - “

"Stupid? Like an idiot? Like a dumbo without two brain cells?”

“I am sorry.”

“I am not saying we are hundred percent okay,” Harry tells him because he’s not, they’re not even in the same zip code as okay. “But I am willing to try, even if I hate both of your stupid faces.”

“We are the same person.”

“Shut up, hero boy.”

Louis shuts up. 

~ finis ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment!


	2. The Knight of London Is A Huge Jackass (And Harry's Boyfriend)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This is the same story from Chapter 1, but told in second person narration. Posted here as a separate chapter, as I know it's not everyone's cup of tea.**

You don’t know when it started, this burning all-consuming ball of fire and passion, but you’re sure something changed at the parade.

It was the Pride in London annual, and it had been televised that year amidst tumultuous times of changing government and public policy. You remember watching from the cosy warmth of your living room. You could have been down there with everyone else, celebrating your right to love whomever. You have been out for years, but that morning, it is laziness more than fear keeping you at home.

You remember seeing him then.

You remember how small he had looked, how brave, how very fragile yet strong, masked, his blue chest plate and armor glinting, standing by his lonesome, frightened people running here to there behind him, the strong, shimmering bubble of protection enveloping that scared little girl being held to gun point by some crazy, right wing, homophobic nutcase with a deathwish.

A foolish, homophobic nutcase.

Because everyone knows he doesn’t let you touch Pride.

Because everyone knows that the Knight is ferociously protective of London, and of the Pride parade in London.

It’s been three years since there’s been an incident during the event, and he is _always, always_ around, protecting, watching over his favorite city, merging into the shadows sometimes, but occasionally a traffic camera’s work or wary cellphone footage would make its way into the news.

They call him the Knight.

 _You_ call him the Knight.

He’s saved you more than once.

 *

London doesn’t know what to make of its resident superhero.

The Telegraph had labeled him the Knight after that photograph leaked, that iconic photo of him outside 10 Downing Street,  bleeding from a bullet wound to the bicep, teeth gritted as he holds up his shield - a blue, floating wall of defense, a bubble of protection around the Prime Minister’s family, even as the Protection Command and MI5 agents scramble to subdue the shooter.

That photo had made its way to newspapers for days to come - the Knight of London, grievously injured, doing his duty through pain, protecting as many people as he could in the middle of crisis.

They call him a hero.

You’ve never believed in heroes until he came along, brave and bold and strong and small.  

Nobody knows how he does it - create spherical shields of protection, seemingly controlled with his mind, that shrink or grow at his will. Bullets don’t pass through the blue shimmers, neither do knives or other weapons. Inside one of his blue spheres, he can vanish at will and reappear.

That’s how he probably gets around - people think he lurks around the city, out of sight, invisible, him and his blue shields of protection, coming into sight right when people need him.

Many have tried to study those blue orbs of protection. Sometimes, he makes them as small as a football, strong, condensed and targeted weapons of destruction when he lunges them at his opponents. At other times, they have been large enough to envelope a truck, and he’s equally lethal with those. He once rolled over an approaching rogue jeep full of burglars with a large blue sphere.

Heat or cold seem to have no effect - he’s pulled people out of a burning hospital, enveloped within the confines of his blue shields.

That had been after saving a group of school children from an out-of-control bus and stopping a bank robbery. There’s no rest for superheros in a city this big.

He’s the bravest man you know.

You have never met him, but you think you know him.

 *

His eyes are blue.

His mask doesn’t cover his eyes. That’s what you notice the day you meet him, everything else is blurry, but his eyes - you remember his eyes in sharp detail.

You are walking home from work on a late evening, through downtown, cutting through your usual route when a cloud of dust and cement blocks your path.

“Sir,” he says to you, even as you are gathering your wits, and he thrusts a bundle into your arms. “Please get her to an ambulance. Medical help. I need to go back.”

His voice is like church bells ringing on a quiet morning, the sound permeating across a sleepy country town.

“Er-grrrhh - what?”

"I need to go back!”

You take in the collapsing building in front of you, and the distant sound of sirens. Police, emergency, medical, fire - they are still all on their way but the Knight of London is already at the scene, pulling people out of the _collapsing building._

More bystanders come forward, and a crowd gathers around the pavement, people with their cellphones out, calling family and police, scrambling to help, trying to keep children away.

The baby in your arms starts fussing, and you gently hold her closer, shushing and murmuring, realizing that the Knight - that he had spoken to you through gritted teeth, sweat dripping down the side of his mask.

….because he had been holding up on part of the building with his glowing shield, round orbs dotting various places of the building where it’s gaping open, the collapsed load-bearing wall and broken concrete replaced by the strength of his will.

You inhale, and try to process, _he is holding up a building._

“Arrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhh!” you hear him groan, and he has got an elderly woman climbed on him like in a piggy back ride, and a small girl in his arms. You see some of the stragglers approaching to help people off of him, and without a pause for breath, _he goes back again._

Londoners around him form a line from the gaping mouth of the building to the ambulances that have arrived at the curb. The Knight goes in and comes back with more people, and the Londoners - hasty volunteers, help triage survivors and put people in ambulances.

 You’re so proud of your city, and in that moment, your eyes meet his blue ones, and you know, he is proud too.

 *

He tracks you down after that.

It take a few weeks, and you’re on your coffee break, nursing a cup by the side of the building. It is warm enough to stand outside in the middle of the night, and you need the fresh air.

“Harry Styles?” his voice comes out of nowhere, and as beautiful it is, you jump two feet in the air.

“I am sorry, did I startle you?”

It is beautiful. It is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard, and you grew up on Nessun Dorma.

“Jesus.”

“I came to say thank you.”

“Are you - what - are you - huh?”

“I am - very grateful for your help during the Escalion fiasco. The building collapse?”

“I know what the Escalion is,” you finally manage. “Are _you_ seriously thanking _me?”_

“Everyone counts,” he says, and you can feel it, you can _feel_ yourself falling in love. “I also wanted to check up on Darcy.”

“Huh?” You are still in shock, and you know that in a few minutes, you will be pinching yourself for coming across as a complete idiot in front of your hero.

“The baby? I gave her to you in the middle of everything.”

“Right,” you say, finally finding your tongue. He chased you down to ask after _a baby._ He knows _her name._ “She was okay. Her mother was rescued in the next round, and I made sure she - Darcy - was matched with her. She had a bruise on her leg, but she was okay.”

“Thank you.”

“You really need to stop thanking _me.”_

“Everyone counts,” he says again. “Everything we do, everything we can do - it counts.”

“I really - you are something else.”

He laughs, and you change your mind about the best sound in the world. His speaking voice just got bumped down to second place. You want to hear him laugh for the rest of your life.

You wreck your brain for something to say, and then, you remember the one thing you’ve always wanted to ask him.

“Are you sleeping properly?”

“I am sorry?” he asks, and his blue eyes in the mask look up at your face. He is shorter than you. He is so small, and yet, he routinely throws himself in front of bullets. Your heart beats loudly in your chest.

“I know people thank you for your service all the time,” you reply, and the words sound stupid even to you. “I know a lot of people ask you about who you are or how you got your powers. I know you get that a lot.

“I always figured, if I ever met you, I would ask you something that people actually want to know. That I want to know.”

“People want to know if I am sleeping properly?”

“A lot of people in the city - _love_ you. They love what you do for us. But a lot of us worry about you too.”

“People - _worry_ about me,” he states, and his voice is colored with disbelief, like he is waiting for you to throw the punchline of an elaborate joke. You sigh.

“You are spotted across the city all night,” you explain. “And you are out in daylight too sometimes. People worry if you ever sleep. Or if you eat properly.”

“I eat fine.”

“Good to know.”

“You are pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

“Cross my heart,” you swear. “There are forums on the internet, of fans I guess. People you’ve saved, or people who believe in you. They want you to be well.”

He laughs again, and your heart thrills at the sound.

“That’s - nice, I guess. Weird, but nice.”

“Is there anything I can do for you? Can I help?”

“You have helped. That’s why I came to say thank you.”

“I mean - more, anything - here, I am a resident at King’s College Hospital. I am a doctor. If you are ever injured, and if you need medical help -”

“Thank you.”

“I can be discreet, I promise,” you are word-vomiting now, and he is looking at you strangely, but you _need_ to get this out, you _need_ to let him know how much he means to people, how much he means to _you._

“You want to help me?”

“Yes.”

“You are a doctor, Harry Styles?”

“I am a doctor.”

“You are a very cute doctor,” he says, and your heart nearly jumps out of your skin. You are gaping at him, and you don’t know how to respond, what to say -

“Thank you for your offer, Dr. Styles,” he laughs again. There’s a brush against your hand, and suddenly your nearly-full coffee cup is in his hands.

“Mmm, hazelnut,” he says, bringing the cup close his mask-covered face. “Lovely. I hope you don’t mind my stealing your latte. Good night!”

In a blur of blue light, he’s gone. You stand there in the alleyway, hand wrapping around the ghost of a cup that’s no longer there, breathing through the fluttering in your chest.

*

You go about your life normally after that, or as normally as possible after you’ve offered a superhero your medical services and he’s stolen your coffee.

You wake up in the morning and make breakfast in your dingy little kitchen, Grimshaw’s voice greeting early risers on the radio, some new indie pop song catching the nation’s fancy.

You walk to work, get to the hospital, and do your patient rounds. You are still a resident, and that means you do a lot of scutwork, filling out patient charts and taking medical histories, running labs and studying and learning.

Sometimes, during a lunch break or while catching the distant sound of a news report from a television in a patient room, you’ll think of him and wonder what he’s doing, if he’s alright, if he’s really sleeping well, if he smiles when he sings along to the radio in the morning, if he sings along to the radio at all..

You call your mum and sister during the weekends, and you meet with your mates for a drink, and you return to work on Monday, excited and energetic.

You don’t date, because ever since _he_ came along, he’s ruined you for other men. He’s given you impossible standards that normal people have no chance of meeting, and even though you understand that you can never, ever _have_ him that way - it’s a pipedream - you have no interest in anyone else.

It will pass.

You’re sure it will pass. Mostly.

*

Gemma badgers you into a blind date she’s set up.

You say no, you make your excuses, you tell her you’ve got a shift at the hospital, but she won’t back down this time.

“Mum’s worried about you,” she says. “And I sort of promised her I will try to get you to have a life.”

“I am a pediatric resident,” you huff at her on the phone. “I don’t get to have a life for another four years.”

“Yes, yes, I have heard the speech before. Look,” she says. “It’s just one night. It will make mum happy, it will get me off the hook with her, and you’ll at least get a nice meal at a restaurant.”

“Gem-”

“He’s a nice guy,” she says. “He is Ella’s kindergarten teacher, and Niall’s best friend. You remember Niall?”

“Loud Irish and drunk?”

“There you go,” she laughs. “Hi mum told ours that he’s been feeling kind of low lately, and he’s sort of unwillingly agreed to this date as well, so the two of you have that in common.”

“Gemma,” you sigh, pressing the bridge of your nose between thumb and index finger. “Why would you set me up on a date with someone who doesn’t want to date?”

“Do _you_ want to date?”

“No.”

"You’re perfect for each other,” she says. “It’s one bloody date, Harry.”

“Fine,” you mutter. “But I will get you back for this.”

“Yes, feel free to find me a hot guy any time.”

“Ewww Gems, you’re never allowed to date. _Ever.”_

“Bye now, ta.”

*

The first time you see him, the proper _him,_ the _other_ him, you say hello and shake hands. His eyes - so blue, so very blue - widen in panic. In the moment, you write it off as date nerves, but you will look back at this interaction one day and feel like an idiot.

His name, he says in a voice that’s familiar and foreign, that’s a couple of octaves deeper than you’re used to from his alter-ego, is Louis Tomlinson.

Lou-iee.

It’s beautiful.

You’d figured, if you ever met the Knight without his mask, he’d have a beautiful name. You don’t yet know how right you are.

You will swear, months down the line in the middle of a screaming match, _how could you. How could you keep up this charade._

You are angrier with yourself than with him. You don’t know how you didn’t recognize those eyes, sparkling in the restaurant’s candle light. You don’t know how that voice - that voice like church bells and smooth as a baby’s skin - even disguised into a deep baritone - ever missed your Knight-senses.

For now though, you sit across a table over pasta and zucchini and wine, and coax answers out of a shy, beautiful man, with familiar blue eyes.

*

One date turns into coffee and lunch and even a Sunday’s trip to the museum.

Louis is - unlike anyone you’ve ever known, unlike anyone you’ve ever met. When you’re with him, he takes up all your attention, he consumes you, mind, body and soul; and you’ve never been so taken with anyone as you’re with him.

He’s so very guarded.

Oh, he’s loud and boisterous and wild, and very annoying when he wants to be; but you can’t shake the feeling that you’re not being shown the real Louis Tomlinson. You feel like you haven’t yet earned the right.

Because Louis is also kind and generous and loyal, so very loyal, and his eyes sparkle when he calls his sisters (religiously, every day). His mother - Jay, Anne’s friend from a long time ago - is protective and loving, and you can tell nobody’s opinion matters to Louis as much as hers does.

She likes you instantly, and you’re relieved.

You had gone on that date hoping for a pleasant meal and maybe one night’s sex. It’s six weeks in, and you’ve barely done more than some heavy necking (even though you want to, dear Lord, you want to, have you _seen_ that arse?), and it feels surprisingly okay.

*

He sits on your balcony one rainy evening, blue chest plate and mask in place, legs crossed and one booted foot tapping out a rhythm on the floor.

You nearly jump out of your skin when you see the figure in pale blue crouched in your balcony, but you go out to say hello anyway.

“Come to steal more coffee?” you ask, and he laughs, that beautiful pearly sound warming your limbs. He seems unreal, almost, his silhouette glowing against the pouring rain. It’s your city, and it never stops raining, and he’s all the more beautiful in this territory that is effectively his.

“Only if you have hazelnut syrup.”

“Better put that on the grocery list,” you smile, feeling so happy and content in this moment. You have a boyfriend who’s amazing, your career feels like it’s finally going somewhere, and you have the Knight of London on your balcony, keeping out of the rain.

“How have you been?” he asks you, and you get the feeling he isn’t just making small talk.

“Excellent,” you answer. “Thanks to you.”

His eyes widen under the mask, and you continue, “that bomb in Newcastle? Thank you.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” he sits back.

“What kind of life do you lead where you _forget about defusing a bomb?”_

He laughs again. “All in a night’s work.”

“I worry about you.”

“So you have told me,” he says. “Along with my legions of fans on the internet.”

“You had a big gash on your side after that mess in Southwark,” you point out.

Your heart had nearly stopped that night, when you had seen him on television taking on a giant of a man - where are all these villains _coming from_? - and in one moment’s distraction to protect a foolish civilian, the Knight had taken a forceful hit.

He’d gone careening across the street, and gotten tossed against a _building_.

You threw up three times that night, paralyzed by fear and worry, made worse because Louis had gone out to see Lottie, and you needed someone to hold you through the whole thing.

“Are you stalking me now, Dr. Styles?”

“The entire internet, the police force and the _government_ is stalking you, Mr. Knight. My interest is purely out of a sense of duty as your doctor.”

“I never agreed to you being my doctor.”

“Tough luck.”

“Something tells me you’re going to be a pain-in-the-ass kind of doctor.”

“I mainly work with five year old children,” you laugh. “I only have trouble with problematic, stubborn, self-destructive adults.”

“You are in pediatrics?”

You hum in agreement. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine,” you can not see, but you just _know_ he’s rolling his eyes. You don’t ever think too much about how you know him so well, how you just _understand_ the Knight and his mannerisms, and until a few months into the future, you won’t have an answer. “Next time I get thrown at a building, I will seek medical help.”

“Was that so hard?”

“You have no idea.”

“Seriously,” you say. “Do you want to come in for a cuppa? My boyfriend buys the best Yorkshire, he’s addicted to the stuff, kind of a tea snob if you ask me, it would be entirely annoying if it weren’t adorable - do you want to come in?”

“I think he has excellent taste,” the Knight laughs. “Boyfriend, eh?”

You realize how casually that word slipped out, especially since you and Louis haven’t yet talked about what you are to each other. The irony, that the reference slipped out for the first time, in a conversation with the Knight, wouldn't hit you for a few months yet.

“It’s - still new,” you blush, feeling odd that this is somehow your life. “He’s nice. I think it might go somewhere.”

“Good on you,” the Knight says, and he smiles, “can I take that tea in a to-go mug, if you’ve got it? I gotta - rescue kittens.”

“You don’t do that.”

“You’d be surprised how many people suck at taking care of their pets.”

“You are very odd, Mr. Knight.”

“Sure, makes balls of light shields is all fine and dandy.  Rescuing kittens, and suddenly I am the odd one.”

You laugh, and even after he vanishes from your apartment clutching your princess to-go mug, you hear the echo of his laughter ringing in the house.

*

That night, Louis calls you over to his place, sounding cheerful and smiley.

You show up with a bottle of wine cradled in one arm. When he opens the door, he is so heart breakingly beautiful that you want to weep.

He pulls you inside, and after dinner, he leads you by the hand to the bedroom. You feel ready to die with anticipation.

“I am so - grateful that you were patient with me,” he says to you in a voice you’ll have dreams about. “I needed it to go slow. But, if you still want me, I think I am ready.”

 _If you still want me._ You cannot believe that this creature exists, and what’s more, you’re allowed to touch him.

“Unn-grrugghh,” is your highly coherent, intelligent reply, and he laughs, unbuttoning your shirt and shrugging out of his own.

“You’re beautiful,” you will say to him that night, hardly daring to believe your own good fortune, tongue mapping out every inch of his golden skin. You will hold him as he completely falls apart with you inside, and through it all, you will think, _I am missing something. Something that’s clawing at the back of my mind, but I cannot see it._

The next morning, you will kiss him goodbye and leave to work. You’re distracted by the taste of his lips and the curve of his arse, so you don’t notice the princess to-go mug sitting sneakily behind the tin of cookies on the kitchen counter.

*

Louis keeps standing you up on dates.

This is another one of those things you’ll feel stupid about in the future. You will spend an entire day charting out dates when the Knight was definitely seen out and about, rescuing people and capturing gunmen, burglars and thieves, and you will compare them against days when Louis didn’t show up to a movie or the museum or a restaurant.

In the future, you will sigh and accept that if your love life is taking a hit, at least it’s for the greater good.

In the present, you will fuss and fret with anxiety that you’re more invested in this relationship than he is, that he just doesn’t feel that way about you, and that you’re about to have your heart broken.

You will lie awake at nights, trying to reconcile the sincerity that Louis infuses into every kiss, with the excuses that he gives you - forgot to put money in the parking meter is your favorite one yet.

There is a horrible, _horrible_ week when you think he is cheating on you, and you pour out your sorrows to the Knight of all people, one evening when patching him up from a stab wound. It’s horrific that he’s sort of turned into your relationship counselor.

The Knight of London.

You cannot believe this is your life.

“He said he _forgot to put money in the parking meter,”_ you grit out through clenched teeth, trying to not focus on the fact that your fingers are pressing against an artery inside the Knight’s body. “Can you believe it? He is going to dump me, and the asshole can’t summon up the courage to do it properly.”

“You think - ungghh - you think he’s going to break up with you?” You are certain you’re imagining the panic bleeding into the Knight’s voice, but the man did have a knife sticking out of his hip a few moments ago.

“London got rid of parking meters in 2008,” you say, finishing the suture, secure that you’ve stopped the bleeding. You rip off the gloves, reaching for the dressing.

The knight’s skin is hot and flushed under his hands, and what he can see of it - he’s taken the armor off, and is holding up the skin tight blue shirt to let you work - is golden, but pale from blood loss. His body feels familiar, even through the professionally detached lens that you try to keep on.

“Maybe,” the Knight says, “he really had something else to do, and couldn’t tell you about it.”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” you said, eyes wide with panic, “he is sleeping with someone else, isn’t he?”

“No!” The Knight exclaims and you look up at him, surprised. “I mean, I don’t think it’s likely from everything you’ve told me. Why do you always jump to the worst possible conclusion?”

“What else could it be?” you ask, closing up his dressing. “He said he couldn’t make it to my step-dad’s birthday today because his dog-sitter canceled at the last minute. He doesn’t _have a dog!”_

“What do you really need from him, Styles?”

“I dunno,” you say, tugging down his shirt. “Some sort of indication that he’s in this for real, that he isn’t just screwing around with me. Keep that dry, would you? And make sure you come back here in two weeks and I will take those stitches out. Nothing strenuous for at least 72 hours.”

“Sure doc,” he smiles at you through his mask. You pass him a bottle of painkillers, and write out instructions clearly on a legal pad. Two weeks after meeting the Knight, you started hoarding up painkiller samples and ointment tubes as you came across them at work. They haven’t yet failed to come in handy.

“Look alive, doc,” he waves goodbye, and vanishes off your balcony.

You throw the blood-stained towels into the washer, and think about how this is your life.

*

You’re having an extremely horrible day at work - little Sara has leukemia, and they can’t find her a marrow transplant in time, and if there’s anything you hate, it’s the cancer cases; you hate them, you feel helpless, and you spent the morning looking over labs, and you sort of hate you life - when you see him standing by your shift station with a bag of lunch.

“I’ve never been happier to see you,” you nearly collapse into his arms. He feels warm against your skin, but he’s wearing his bulky brown overcoat, the one he wears when it’s particularly cold out. You hate it, because it hides away the shape of his body, and it reminds you just how insecure he is about that sort of thing.

“Aww, poor dear,” he coos, petting your hair. “Having a bad day, Dr. Styles?”

Now that’s just not fair. He knows what it does to you when he calls you by your title.

“What are you doing here?”

“Brought you lunch,” he says, hopping onto your desk and pulling tupperware boxes out of the brown paper bag. “Lasagna, and there’s also some soup in here with garlic bread. Everything is still hot.”

“You are the best,” you say to him. “Best boyfriend ever. You’re getting so much sex tonight. Did you cook?”

“Don’t worry,” he laughs. “Danielle did. I called in a favor.”

You eat in silence, companionable and pleasant, and you feel like a human being again after about three mouthfuls. He eats with you, looking at you through unsure eyes, taking you in. You would be uncomfortable at the attention, but you’ve been so starved for his that it feels alright.

“I wanted to apologize,” he says, taking you by surprise. “I know I haven’t been the best boyfriend lately - I _am_ sorry about missing Robin’s birthday. It’s just - I have things going on at work, and I was applying for another job at King’s College as a professor, so I have been nervous about that. I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to wait till it was finalized.”

“Congratulations!” you beam at him, you’re so happy for him, and you cannot believe you were worried _yesterday_ that this marvelous creature was going to break up with you.

Of course, months down the line, you will scream bloody murder at him about using intel that Harry gave the Knight to fix his love life, but for the moment, you laugh with him, and ask him all about the new job.

The two of you spend half an hour giggling like teenagers in your work station, and a part of you wants to ravish him right there on top of patient charts, and another part of you is content to just bask in his company.

It feels like new beginnings.

*

You are both possessive lovers.

He gets a weird expression on his face every time you talk about the Knight. The rest of your friends and family think it’s harmless hero worship, and maybe a bit of an unhealthy crush, but Louis never, _ever_ talks about it.

He glosses over the Knight poster on your bedroom wall, and the small action figure on your workdesk. Your apartment keys are on a Knight keyring, and Louis just rolls his eyes at that one.

When you tell him you’d met the Knight, or that you’d had coffee with him, those are the nights  Louis takes you to the bedroom and makes you forget everything except his name.

The day he comes home with a bright lipstick stain on the curve of his jaw is the day you have your first fight - a screaming, all-out, rage filled showdown that you’re both ashamed about later.

He says he didn’t even know the lipstick was there, and makes up a cock-and-bull story about crashing into a woman in the elevator - he is very accident-prone, he constantly shows up with bruises and cuts (another one of those things that make you feel like an idiot in the future) - and it takes three days, a lot of groveling and a bouquet of flowers to calm you down.

You give in, because you miss him than anything else.

This feeling of possessiveness will only intensify after you find out about his alter-ego. You will understand that fans, the people he rescues, sometimes hit on him, and sometimes, over-eager women plant one on him in the rush of adrenaline, and even though you _understand,_ you will sulk about it, and you will spend late evenings and early mornings marking his hips, his neck, his dainty ankles and the curve of his bum with your teeth.

Of course, months later, you will point out to him how _he_ is _jealous_ of his _own_ alter-ego, and laugh at the look on his face.

You cannot believe this is your life.

*

You’re frustrated that your relationship seems to be going nowhere.

You’ve dropped hints about possibly moving in together, or at least, to talk about the possibility. Louis is a stone-faced, cold, immovable bastard.

He’s ignoring the subject, and he’s masterfully avoiding it every time you bring it up.

You feel like you’re stuck in a vacuum with no future, and you’re terrified because you’ve been in such relationships before. You always, _always_ fall harder and faster than the other person, and you cannot wait for them to catch up.

This time, it feels different. You don’t want to let this one go.

You can see a future with Louis. You don’t think you will ever meet another person who understands you like he does (except the Knight, but who’re you kidding, that’s never going to happen.)

So you have a boyfriend who is commitment phobic to the extreme, and you sometimes patch up a superhero you have a crush on, who sometimes shamelessly flirts with you and gives you relationship advice.

You cannot believe this is your life.

*

On a late spring day, you watch on a live news report, with your heart in your throat, as the Knight takes a plummeting from a mutant dinosaur trying to take over London.

This is the world now, with mutant creatures unleashed and science gone wrong and villains with enhanced powers robbing banks.

The right-wing media keeps pointing out that none of these weirdos showed up before the Knight, and you know, from years of growing up on comic books, that where there are heroes, there are villains.

You understand that.

But it does nothing to prepare you for the gut wrenching fear when you see him take a beating. He is out of his weight class on this one, and even though that’s usually his M.O., he always takes on guys who are several times bigger than him, this time feels lethal in a real way.

You rush out in the middle of your shift, begging Liam to cover for you and get to your apartment to find him bleeding all over your couch.

“Bloody wanking fuck -” you curse up a storm, rushing to the medkit you’ve stashed in the cupboard. “You fucking self-destructive git -”

“Hello Dr. Styles how do you do, I am fine too, thanks for asking.” He breathes out, trying to grin through the pain because he’s a fucking self-destructive git. “Your boyfriend called. I wrote a message down. Sorry, got blood on your phone.”

“For the love of all that’s holy -” you continue cussing. “What the fuck are you doing answering my goddamn phone, Jesus Christ, you should be focussing on not bleeding to death.”

You reach for the pad in a quick second anyway, and read the mad scribble on the blood stained notepad - _have to attend conference in glasgow, be gone two days, love you -_ and turn to the vigilante superhero on your couch.

He’s got his mask on, and the armor is slashed from dinosaur claws ( _what even is his life) and_ the fabric of the undersuit is sticking to his skin with blood. You unapologetically find a pair of scissors and cut him out of his top.

In your panic to stop the bleeding, you don’t realize just how familiar that chest is under your hands, you don’t even notice that you bit those nipples till they were sore and puffy that very morning. He’s cut in too many places, and definitely broken a bone in his right arm.

You do what you can for him in your living room, get him into your bed, and keep vigil. You open orthopedic textbooks, and read through procedures you’re fairly confident you can perform, and in the morning, you get him to bite down on Louis’ leather belt as you force his arm back into its socket.

You throw up in the toilet after he passes out on your bed, but when you watch him sleeping in your bed like he trusts you, you feel content.

He’s up on his feet after eighteen hours. Accelerated healing, he says. He’s got the genes of a mutant, and the doctor in you wants a sample while the friend in you feels ferociously protective of this man.

He insists on leaving, against your better medical judgement. You let him go, with gauze, painkillers, detailed instructions and a box of soup. You have seen how much he eats in one sitting, and you know he will be bloody starving in a few hours.

When you watch him vanish, it feels like a piece of your heart leaves with him.

You have known for a while that you’re in love with two men. Louis keeps you grounded, with his eyes and laughter and heart. He is genuine, loyal, kind and endlessly forgiving. He is everything you dream of for a lifetime kind of commitment, for love that endures.

But the Knight is everything you knew is covetable in a man, he is a symbol of everything that’s good about the world even when the world proves to you that it doesn’t deserve saving.

The Knight is about dreams and ideals, everything that you read about in fairy tales and childhood stories and whispered anecdotes, he is the laughter of a child and the glory of the Sun, he is everything that makes being human worthwhile.

He makes you want to be better.

You don’t know what makes him go out there and risk his life every night, but he does.

Sometimes, you wonder if he has family that worries, if he has a wife or a husband, if he has children or siblings or next door neighbors that notice if he’s gone. You wonder what those people will feel if you fail at your job, if one day, he turns up on your balcony bleeding out and there’s nothing you can do.

You wonder if you can go on after losing the Knight.

You wonder…

*

You are sitting on your couch (the one on which a superhero nearly bled out a month ago, you cannot believe this is your life) viciously attacking a pint of chocolate ice cream, angry and moments away from crying into the cushions when he knocks on your window.

He is floating, three stories above ground, on level with your window in one of his blue spheres of protection, grinning at you. He’s holding flowers in one hand and ice-cream in another.

The flowers are blue peonies. Louis is the only person in the world who knows you’re a weirdo who likes blue peonies.

You let him in. That nagging voice in your mind gets louder - _you’re missing something._

“I brought ice-cream,” he says, holding them out.

“Good, I am nearly out.”

You settle back on the couch, annoyed at being interrupted in your sulk, and turn up the volume on the television.

“The flowers are also for you. Can I sit down?”

"Knock yourself out.”

“Aren’t you always telling me not to do that?”

You smile despite yourself.

“What do you want, hero boy?”

“Figured you’d like some company,” he says, shrugging.

“Slow crime night?”

“One train accident in the evening. Couple of burglaries, a broken water main.”

“You’re kidding. You’re a plumber now?”

“All sorts of skills are needed in the superheroing line.”

“I’m sure. Share the ice cream, jerk.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My boyfriend is a prize git.”

“What’d he do now?”

“He walked out on me in the middle of dinner,” you complain, shoving another spoonful in your mouth. “I went the goddamn distance. Made reservations. Bought him a present. Found his favorite cologne. I called _his mother._ Does he remember it’s Valentine’s day? No.”

“I really wouldn’t want to be your boyfriend right now,” he says, and he says it oddly, like it’s a joke, and you hate him a little bit for it. “I am sure he’s wishing he could make it up to you somehow.”

“He can make it up to me by bloody staying till the end of a meal,” you sound irritatingly close to tears now, and cannot bring yourself to care. “I don’t know what I am doing wrong.”

“I am sure you aren’t doing anything wrong,” the Knight says, sounding sad. “Whatever it is, it’s on him.”

“He’s perfect,” you defend him, even though you started this conversation by calling him a prize git. “He’s absolutely perfect. Somehow, I keep screwing it up with him. I do something or say something and he takes off like a building’s on fire.”

“Train,” Knight mutters, sounding distant.

“What?”

“Nothing, sorry,” he says. “For what it’s worth,” he gets up and hands you the peonies. “Happy Valentines’ Day.”

You blush, not knowing what to make of it, not daring to hope, and most of all, just - missing Louis, missing him so much. You brush away the treacherous tears that have made their way down your cheeks, and look up at the Knight through watery eyes.

He looks glorious, and he looks at you like he cannot believe you exist. He looks terrified.

What does a superhero have to be terrified about, you wonder, just as he looms closer and kisses you.

You’re stunned speechless for a moment, and he’s kissing you like he’s going to snap you out of it with his mouth, and good Lord, he probably could… you kiss him right back, because you’re feeling miserable and sad and lonely, and you miss your boyfriend who’s being a prize git, and the Knight feels good against you, his mouth warm and wet and open and familiar…

So familiar..

...no.

No.

_Oh bloody wanking fuck no._

It all comes crashing down around your ears in the duration of this one earth-shattering kiss, like your world has tilted on its axis and resettled into place, everything bright and sharp in increased resolution and defined clarity. Everything makes sense, and the crushing heavy betrayal sits sour on your tongue.

Your heart thuds loudly in your chest, fighting to break through your rib cage.

You push him off, and with one shaking hand, reach up and tug at the mask covering the Knight’s upper face. Something tells you that you don’t need to.

You know this man.

You know him very well.

Or maybe, you don’t know him at all…

You stay like that in the little corner of your apartment, you on your couch, breathing hard and deep, letting the tears fall, looking up at the superhero in your living room, pale in a blue suit, blue peonies fallen to the side, silence stretching.

You know this man. But you don’t know him at all.

You weep.

*

The world mutes into black and white after that.

The weeks after you throw him out of your apartment, out of your life… you don’t have any recollection of those weeks. You go to work, you see patients, you do your rotation like an automaton. Sometimes you eat, sometimes you sleep. Most nights, you lie awake staring at your ceiling until its dawn.

You love two men.

You have always loved two men.

That’s the horrible reality of the day, that you still love two men, and you always will. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

Because there is no part of your life that one or the other hasn’t taken over. The hospital, your workstation, your apartment, your bedsheets, the shampoo in your shower, they are all permeated with the memories of one of them.

The other fills your every waking moment, and stares out at you from newspapers in the lobby and news reports on the television. You see him in the plastic wrapper of gauze rolls, in the flushed scarlet of dripping blood in the emergency room, in the pale blue skies of a beautiful day. Everywhere you turn, you see his eyes. Their eyes.

You love two men.

You didn’t know they were one and the same, but you love two men.

*

The betrayal stings the hardest, even when you understand his motives.

You put it together not long after that. You spend nearly a day on the internet, putting together dates of appearances and your own canceled dates, unfinished dinners and stood up picnics.

You realize you’ve never seen the two of them together, the Knight has never visited you when you’ve been curled up in Louis’ arms. The Knight’s never had a medical emergency when he’s been balls deep in your arse.

How convenient.

Everything feels like a lie.

You remember that lunch all those months ago, when Louis came bundling up to your workstation with pasta and soup, and how you’d fallen for it. How you believed that he wanted you, that he isn’t in it just for fun, he’s in it for the long run.

Of course he brought you lunch and made a grand romantic gesture.

_You'd told him what he needed to do._

The Knight is a sucky relationship counselor and you want to punch his stupid masked face.

You stay away from the news and the internet after that. You don’t want to know what he’s doing with his powers, you don’t want to know if he’s been given the key to the city, or made a mascot for the cricket team or been called to speak at the U.N.

You hate his stupid face. You love them both, but argh, you hate that stupid face, masked or unmasked.

You cannot believe this is your life.

*

Gemma tries to get you to go on other dates.

You don’t have the heart to tell her you’re entirely fucking ruined for men. The Knight had already made it impossible for you to date anyone, and with Louis in the mix, you can’t but look at other people with fault finding eyes.

He doesn’t have Louis’ eyes or the Knight’s jawline or dainty ankles or a fucking bleeding brave heart.

You hate that they’ve ruined you for anyone else.

You hate that you still think of them as two people.

*

You are getting used to coming home to a cold, empty apartment.

But tonight, you have got _him_ bleeding on your couch again.

“I will leave if you want me to,” he croaks out and you’re frozen in the doorway. “But I had nowhere else to go, I am sorry - please - sorry -”

You rush to the medkit because you’re a goddamn doctor, and because there is no universe in which you can stand by and watch this man die, and because you are that much of a fool in love, and because there is no version of you that does not love a version of him.

You will always love every version of him, even when you hate his stupid face.

He’s got a bit of rebar sticking through his stomach, and it hasn’t nicked anything important, but you want scans to be sure.

You treat him the best you can, throw an old shirt and trousers at him and march his ass to the hospital. The Knight cannot get scans or a blood test, but Louis goddamn Tomlinson will sit quietly through every test you throw at him or so help him God.

Just for his sins, you admit him and keep him overnight.

You’re a vindictive bastard, and you cannot believe this is your life.

*

You open your mailbox every week to different things.

Apology presents, flowers, books, tickets to his favorite movies, letters and cards and more flowers.

You throw it all in the trash.

You burn the letters and the cards. There’s no point in taking risks, so you help protect his stupid ass secret identity.

It takes him five weeks to figure out that you don’t want expensive flowers or apologies in the mail. He shows up on your doorstep on day two of week six (not that you’re counting) and asks if he can come inside.

You step aside to let him in and go back to your textbooks.

“I am sorry,” he says, shamefaced and desperate. “I should have trusted you. I should have told you the truth. I was a horrible boyfriend, a terrible friend and a worse relationship counselor.”

You stay silent, trying to hate his stupid face.

“I hurt you, and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll have me.”

He looks at you, earnest and open, honest in a way neither one of them have been for the duration of your relationship. You hate that you still think of them as two different people.

“I miss you,” he says. “I miss waking up to you in the morning. I miss having you yell at me about leaving the towel on the floor. I miss you fretting when I get hurt, I miss bringing you ice cream through the window, I miss sitting with you on the balcony, I miss laughing with you and loving you and making love to you. I cannot work, I cannot sleep, I cannot be a goddamn superhero without you. Please tell me what I need to do for you to take me back.”

You kiss him because what else is there to do? You are angry, oh, you’re so angry, and it’s unlikely to go away anytime soon, and you’re going to feel stupid every time you see him in that stupid mask, but the world is grey when he isn’t in your life, and you’re so tired of missing the color of his eyes.

He smiles against your lips, and his expression tells you he’s thinking of the last time the two of you kissed in this room. You are, too.

“Ground rules,” you say against his lips, whispered and quiet.

“Anything.”

“You tell me the truth,” you say. “All of it. Without exception, without omission. You won’t lie to me, especially about your goddamn health. You will make time for at least one date a week, and you won’t run away every time we try to have a serious conversation.”

“I promise.”

“You will stop doing that - the fake deep voice thing, you dick. You are not fooling anyone. Any more, I mean, shut up.”

He laughs, face buried in your shoulder.

“I am sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t mean to make you feel - “

"Stupid? Like an idiot? Like a dumbo without two brain cells?”

“I am sorry.”

“I am not saying we are hundred percent okay,” you tell him because you’re not, you’re not even in the same zip code as okay. “But I am willing to try, even if I hate both of your stupid faces.”

“We are the same person.”

“Shut up, hero boy.”

He shuts up. 

~ finis ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You stuck it out this far, thank you! Please leave a comment? Pretty please.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of the fic is inspired from existing comics lore. "Forgot to put money in the parking meter" is an excuse Clark Kent used a lot with Lois Lane, notably in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. 
> 
> Much is inspired by rainjoy's truly spectacular Klaine superhero AU: All the Other Ghosts - you should read it even if you are not in the Klaine fandom. 
> 
> Please leave a comment! 
> 
> OR say hi on tumblr - kepzandme.tumblr.com


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